"Agreed. Let us speak to Father Grimburrow and Sheriff Caeler then head to the prison. Thank you for breakfast, Kendra. We will let you know if we discover anything. We should be back before nightfall."

"Didn't the professor mention in his diary something about ghosts at Harrowstone? I like a little fun as much as anyone, but I have no interest in crossing swords with phantoms. Especially if the professor had trouble with them," Firavel said with a worried look.

"Indeed, if none of us a versed in dealing with ghosts, Father Grimburrow should at least be of some help." Girvin finally spoke up after ravenously finishing his plate. He'd slept fitfully through the night after wrestling with the events of the previous day - something very bad was definitely afoot and he had a lot of new information about his friend the professor to digest at the same time. After taking a contented stretch to finish waking himself and to settle breakfast the gnome pushed himself to his feet. "That was excellent Kendra, thank you." Taking a moment to survey the other's and their progress on breakfast he added: "Should we head out after breakfast? Or do any of you have plans for the morning?"

Kendra reminds you about the Temple that you visited yesterday, easy enough to find since you simply exit her house, take a right, and follow the road until you see it. She begins cleaning up after the meal, delighted that you all enjoyed it, and asks you to say 'Hello!' to Father Grimburrow for her.

The walk is short and uneventful, taking only a few minutes before you arrive at the Temple. You enter and ask for Father Grimburrow. An acolyte leads you to the rear of the Temple and knocks on the door. The older priest opens it, "Hello, welcome to the Temple. All of you coming to convert!?" He cackles at his own joke before backing up and waving you all into his spacious office.

"Welcome, welcome, please make yourselves comfortable. What can an old priest of Pharasma do for you today?"

The old priest leans back, looking first at Leon, "Well, young man, while I was acquainted with the Professor, he was not one of my followers. I believe he worked with the History department of Lepidstadt University, but I don't think he was a member of the faculty. Other than that, I really don't know much about his work."

Turning his gaze to Sethis, he continues, "As for ghosts, I can help there. Ghosts are created when something causes a disturbance between this world and the next usually a great injustice, but not always. There is always a focus - it could be an event, a strong emotion, or even a mundane item. To permanently deal with ghosts, their focus must be discovered. Unfortunately, many ghosts have an unhealthy dislike for living creatures, so attempting to communicate with them is often impossible. That is why ghosts are so difficult to deal with; their focus remains unknown and unresolved."

"The riot in Harrowstone though... I was not here during that tragedy, despite my age. But we have several tomes of town history in our library. For a small donation, I would be happy to let you peruse the books at your convenience."

For 5 gold, the party gets 10 skill checks to research Harrowstone. Any of these would be sufficient - Knowledge: arcana, history, local.

"Thank you for the information and opportunity. Perhaps we can also find that list of those who died in the fire. The professor made mention of it in his journal," Firavel says before hitting the books.

After a few hours of research, you find the following information about Harrowstone prison:

Harrowstone is a ruined prison — partially destroyed by a fire in 4661, the building has stood vacant ever since. The locals suspect that it’s haunted, and don’t enjoy speaking of the place.

Harrowstone was built in 4594. Ravengro was founded at the same time as a place where guards and their families could live and that would produce food and other supplies used by the prison. The fire that killed all of the prisoners and most of the guards destroyed a large portion of the prison’s underground eastern wing, but left most of the stone structure above relatively intact. The prison’s warden perished in the fire, along with his wife, although no one knows why she was in the prison when the fire occurred. A statue commemorating the warden and the guards who lost their lives was built in the months after the tragedy — that statue still stands on the riverbank just outside of town.

Most of the hardened criminals sent to Harrowstone spent only a few months imprisoned, for it was here that most of Ustalav’s executions during that era were carried out. The fire that caused the tragedy was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, for the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison’s dungeons immediately prior to the conflagration. It was only through the self-sacrifice of Warden Hawkran and 23 of his guards that the prisoners were prevented from escaping—the guards gave their lives to save the town of Ravengro.

At the time Harrowstone burned, five particularly notorious criminals had recently arrived at the prison. While the commonly held belief is that the tragic fire began accidentally after the riot began, in fact the prisoners had already seized control of the dungeon and had been in command of the lower level for several hours before the fire. Warden Hawkran triggered a deadfall to seal the rioting prisoners in the lower level, but in so doing trapped himself and nearly two dozen guards. The prisoners were in the process of escaping when the panicked guards accidentally started the fire in a desperate attempt to end the riot.

During your research, you also noticed books and documents containing information about the following topics:

The Whispering Way

The five notorious criminals (mentioned above)

You can make more skill checks if you want to look for more details on either of these topics (but please make separate checks for each topic). You have 5 checks remaining, and you can donate another 5 gold gets you 10 more skill checks.

Otherwise, please let me know what else you would like to do.

I wasn't clear about it, but each "check" represents time spent in the library; each check equates to 20 minutes, so you've already spent 1 hour in the Temple.

Sethis and Gervin head toward the back of the room into large stacks of dusty boxes. After several minutes, they find a crate of prison logbooks that contain the following information about the five criminals:

Father Charlatan (Sefick Corvin): Of the five notorious prisoners, only Father Charlatan was not technically a murderer, yet his crimes were so blasphemous that several churches demanded he be punished to the full extent of Ustalavic law. Although he claimed to be an ordained priest of any number of faiths, Father Corvin was in fact a traveling con artist who used faith as a mask and a means to bilk the faithful out of money in payment for false miracles or cures. He became known as Father Charlatan after his scheme was exposed and his Sczarni accomplices murdered a half-dozen city guards in an attempt to make good the group’s escape.

The Lopper (Vance Saetressle): When the Lopper stalked prey, he would hide in the most unlikely of places, sometimes for days upon end with only a few supplies to keep him going while he waited for the exact right moment to strike. Once his target was alone, the Lopper would emerge to savagely behead his victim with a handaxe.

The Mosswater Marauder (Ispin Onyxcudgel): Only 5 years before his hometown of Mosswater was destined to be overrun and ruined by monsters from the nearby river, Ispin Onyxcudgel was a well-liked artisan and a doting husband. When he discovered his wife’s infidelity, he f lew into a jealous rage and struck her dead with his hammer, shattering her skull and his sanity with one murderous blow. Wracked with shame and guilt, Ispin became convinced that if he could rebuild his wife’s skull she would come back to life—but unfortunately, he could not find the last blade-shaped fragment from the murder site. So instead, Ispin became the Mosswater Marauder. Over the course of several weeks, the cunning dwarf stalked and murdered nearly 20 people while searching for just the right skull fragment. He was captured just before murdering the daughter of a visiting nobleman from Varno, and was carted off to Harrowstone that same night.

The Piper of Illmarsh (real name unknown): Before he snatched his victims, the Piper taunted his targets with a mournful dirge on his flute. He preferred to paralyze lone victims by dosing their meals with lich dust and then allowed his pet stirges to drink the victims dry of blood.

The Splatter Man (Hean Feramin): Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet an accidental association with a succubus twisted and warped his study, turning it into an obsession. Feramin became obsessed with the power of a name and how he could use it to terrify and control. Soon enough, his reputation was ruined, he’d lost his tenure, and he’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with an imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every few days, he would secretly arrange for his victim to find a letter from her name written in blood, perhaps smeared on a wall or spelled out with carefully arranged entrails. Once he had spelled his victim’s name, he would at last come for her, killing her in a gory mess using a complex trap or series of rigged events meant to look like an accident.

The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years.

Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.

The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers— the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive philosophy difficult for outsiders to learn much about.

Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way’s goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.

After looking through so many books, all of you are sure that pretty much exhausts the relevant information you can glean from the Temple library.

"...And I thought the most macabre part of my visit to Ravengro would be the funeral. Shall we try to meet with Alendru then, to see if he can cast light on the professor's darkening body of work?" Girvin put on as much of a neutral tone as he could, despite his instincts telling him to run away from this mess and to not look back. Still, what was he doing in Ustalav if not seeking discovery?

Leon has been making careful notes in two books of his own. The first a simple sheaf of papers bound together with twine, obviously a personal notebook of some kind. The second, a small but thick hardbound tome with the crest of a shattered shield on the face.

He notes names of books, authors, particular passages, and a number of other key pieces of information before putting them both back in his bag and standing, ready to follow Girvin out the door.

As the group exits the Temple, they notice a large crowd of people moving south along the road. Across the river, many people are also headed in the same direction.

[spoiler=Perception DC 15]You see several men wearing chainmail and longswords on the other side of the river sprinting as fast as they can toward the south. It appears they are soldiers, guards, or part of some official organization.[/dice]

As you watch, an acolyte exits the Temple behind you, looking around in confusion. He calls out to one of the people heading south, "What's happening, where is everyone going?"

The man pauses, "You haven't heard? Somebody threw blood all over the monument of Warden Hawkran!"

The acolyte looks puzzled for a moment as the man once again heads down the road. Obviously taken aback, the acolyte disappears back into the Temple. You hear snippets of his conversation as he spreads the word among his brethren.

"...And just when I thought the library was going to be the most macabre part of my day. Girvin mumbled as he slipped in line behind Sethis and Leon to see the freshly colored monument. "I hate to bring it up, but what do we think are the chances of this being connected to those we've been reading about? It's not very subtle, in a 'whispery' way, but a it does have a bit of an evil ritual vibe."

Rolled a 4+9=13 earlier today, but got distracted and didn't get to post it.

"I think I've been reading to many necromancy related history books, personally." Girvin muttered as he continued his pursuit of the moving crowd. This is why he was never a fan of books - applying the knowledge was always so much more difficult than practical experience. If you've had poison ivy before and you see it again you know to stay away. If you read about poison ivy, you end up jumping at every three-leafed plant you see. Fortunately, Mithias' enthusiasm broke Girvin's short-lived sulk as the gnome cleared his mind to whatever they were about to see. 'No use jumping to conclusions before I've even seen anything.'

As you arrive, a group has already started gathering around the large statue. Moving closer, you see a stone figure carved to represent a man standing tall, wearing a uniform with a badge on his left breast. His right hand is clenched into a fist and placed on his hip while his left hand holds a large baton at his side. The statue stands upon a large pedestal that contains a plaque on the base. The detail that draws the most attention, however, is the massive amount of blood that has been splashed across the monument. In addition to the blood covering the statue, the culprit also made one deliberate mark; the letter “V” has been drawn across the plaque.

Men in chainmail are attempting to form a barrier, pushing people back. A large man wearing a tabard over his chainmail starts yelling as the others continue to move people back from the statue, "Okay everyone, back up, back up. Give us space to get in here and examine the monument!"

Perception DC 15:

It appears the blood was splashed high upon the statue and allowed to run down. The spill and droppings cause more of the statue to be obscured; it is likely a small amount of blood was used, but a cursory glance at the statue would indicate much more.

Perception DC 20:

Based on the color of the blood, it was likely placed there several hours ago, likely sometime last night.

You can get within twenty feet before the men in armor restrict your access. Please let me know if you want to do anything specific. Feel free to make relevant skill checks in advance.

Arriving at the sanguine statue, Girvin allows himself a moment to take in the whole scene. He used his small frame as best as he could to get close to the front of the crowd without drawing the armored mens' ire.

"That blood is old" was all he said as he tried to wrap his head around the possible meaning or purpose of this. It could be simple vandalism, but then why blood and not paint, manure, or something less grim? Whatever was going on, someone definitely wanted to make a point with all of this mess.

question:

Is the statue out of the way of the town's regular traffic? It was said to be on the river bank just out of town, but I'm wondering if it should strike Girvin as odd that the statue's state wasn't recognized for the first third/half of the day.